Scavengers stealing from home of alleged hoarder

LONG BEACH — As a 51-year-old Long Beach man sat in a city jail Friday awaiting a formal charge of attempted murder for shooting a city inspector in the face, junk scavengers began to circle his North Long Beach home.

Less than a day after his arrest, the home of alleged hoarder Anthony Gorospe became a beacon for scrap metal hunters and trash collectors picking through the debris left behind after Gorospe's seven-hour standoff with police Thursday afternoon.

The front and back yard of his home were overgrown with brush, weeds and littered with pieces of furniture and trash. Several cars were parked in and around the property, and neighbors and the local postal carrier said the house was filled floor to ceiling with debris.

Long Beach Police Department officers were notified of the trash pickers Friday, and said they would send patrol units to check on the property, said Lisa Massacani, a Long Police Department spokeswoman.

"There's not much more the city can do," Massacani said, noting that Code Enforcement officials said the state of the property wasn't bad enough to require it to be fenced in by the city.

"At this point, it's a trespassing issue," Massacani said, urging neighbors who see people taking items from Gorospe's yard to call police immediately.

Gorospe was officially booked into the City Jail at 12:44 a.m. Friday on suspicion of attempted murder and is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Inmate Information Center.

He is expected to be formally charged at the Long Beach Superior Court on Monday afternoon, authorities said.

The incident began before 8 a.m. Thursday, when a city building inspector and a cleaning crew arrived at Gorospe's home in the 6100 block of North John Avenue to clean out weeds and trash in the front yard of the blighted property, police said.

The home had been the subject of numerous code violations going back several years, and the inspector asked a police officer to accompany the crew, Police Chief Jim McDonnell said Thursday.

The crew never made it into the home, however, as Gorospe allegedly opened fire from inside his front door, grazing the city inspector near the eyebrow.

The victim was taken to a local hospital where he was doing well Thursday night and was expected to survive, police said.

The shooting, however, kicked off a tense standoff, with Gorospe allegedly shooting at police with a rifle equipped with a scope and shouting at officers to kill him.

At about 2 p.m. Long Beach Police Department SWAT officers pumped a mixture of tear gas and pepper spray into the home while a San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department's ballistic vehicle ripped down shrubbery covering the front of the small one-story home as well as the front window, bars and a security gate, police said.

Gorospe eventually came out of the house, shortly before 3 p.m., though he still refused to surrender. That was when a K-9 dog was sent in and took him down, McDonnell said.

Neighbors said Gorospe was a friendly man and kind to children, but they also said he has also struggled with mental health issues for some time. The problems worsened when his mother died a year ago, followed by the deaths of two more family members, several residents said.

Neighbors said he told them Wednesday that he wouldn't let "the police take him," as he showed them a letter from the city warning that the weeds and trash in his yard had to go.

When he opened fire Thursday morning on the city inspector, he shouted "kill me, kill me," one witness said.

And as he was led away from the scene in handcuffs Thursday afternoon he shouted, "tell me you love me," at a group of reporters and photographers.

In an email sent Friday, Director of Long Beach Development Services Amy Bodek said the city was in contact with the property owner in recent years.

"And for the most part, the property owner had been responsive and abated the blighting conditions when asked to do so by the city," Bodek said. "Because this location is still part of an active police investigation, I'm not able to comment on specifics just yet."

A search of property records showed that the listed owner of the house was Teresa Gorosme, who neighbors said was the suspect's deceased mother. However, police and Sheriff's officials said Friday the suspect's last name is Gorospe.

City Prosecutor Doug Haubert said his department doesn't have a record of prosecuting Gorospe or the property owner of record, but noted not all code violations rise to the level of prosecution.

"This was a weed abatement case," Haubert said, adding that Code Enforcement doesn't need to bring the City Prosecutor's Office into such matters.

Typically, Haubert said, residents are given a certain length of time to clean up their yard before the city will go in with a cleaning crew to take out the debris.